Most likely none of these e-mails work; they are from about January, 1996
| Dear FRONTLINE,
I spent seven months in the Gulf where I served as the Chemical Officer for the 11th Air Defense Brigade (the SCUD Busters). If chemical agents were used I would have known since had units form my Brigade stationed all over the theater of war. Not a single soldier ever reported a single incident. How do you hide a chemical incident? This would be the Mother-of-all cover-ups of which, by default, I would be a part of. Let's stop the hype and distortion and find what is causing the health problems that Gulf vets are having. Earl Henderson Dear FRONTLINE, pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/syndrome/talk/ I am a Gulf War Veteran.. I have had health problems since returning from Saudi Arabia. I am concerned that, if I don't take time everytime I get sick to go to a doctor and have it documented, I will have problems in the future trying to get help from the VA. I do not think that the powers that be can blame stress for the afflictions that are plaguing veterans from Desert Shield and Storm. I was lucky to have a relatively easy assignment in Saudi Arabia and felt that there is more stress in my life now than there ever was then. I started feeling sick before I left the service in 1992 and haven't felt fully healthy since. My shot records were removed from my medical file after I returned from Saudi and before I ETS. I was also told that the problems I checked off on my ETS medical form(headaches, dizziness, fatigue, etc.) were all in my head. I want some answers from an impartial review. Why not get the Iraqi soldiers and other people who are suffering the same problems as the rest of us involved in this so we can get more facts and figure this dilemma out. They are suffering just as much as we are and, should have an explanation. Thank you for this opportunity to express my views.
W. Cramer Dear FRONTLINE, What motive do you have to make one of our nation's top scientists look so foolish? Dr. Garth Nicolson's finding of HIV-1 env gene within the Mycoplasma is the story, not that he treated one incurable veteran. Why didn't you talk about his findings rather than his theories? Your no better than The New York Times that you also critiqued. Why are scientists finding antibodies to Squalene? Why did the DOD say that they didn't even know what Squalene was (highly experimental adjuvant) but now we know that they even produce it? And about the hospitalization study (The Postwar Hospitalization Experience of Persian Gulf Veterans)-Didn't Dr. Rostker work at the DMDC when those records were gathered for the study? Isn't he now in charge of the investigation of the illnesses? Isn't he responsible for the Manpower and Reserve Affairs? (Isn't this a conflict of interest?) When you interviewed Joseph, you let him get away with comparing our CHRONIC ILLNESS with a large city's population which would have the same number of hospitalizations, but WE ARE STILL GOING TO THE HOSPITALS! WE ARE STILL SICK! (and dying) And didn't the hospitalization report find that prior to the war we were at less risk of hospitalization? NOT NOW! And didn't that study contradict itself about how many service member's records were used? VA's literature for September 1993 shows that the study's number of participants would have to be 120,000 less than reported. Who did those other 120,000 records belong to? Start asking the real questions! Mark Langenkamp
Dear FRONTLINE, I'm a former Marine who served time in the Gulf from start to finish. Over the past years my health has turned poor. I'm 28 years old and feel like I'm 80. I went to the VA for help but it was no good. I have a bad heart and stomach. Were do we go for help? We served our country with pride but now they have turned their backs on us. If we were locked up at one of the many Federal Prisons the government would have to take care of us!!! Mark Prater
Dear FRONTLINE, I am a Gulf War Vet and am currently 60% disabled. I was in perfect health prior to going to the Gulf. I believe that we were exposed to something that is causing us to age rapidly. The current investigations only make conjectures that it was a combination of things we were exposed to. I do not believe this as I did not use pesticides, PB, etc. I did, however, receive the anthrax vaccine. This is the only difference I have found between those in my unit who are ill and those who are not. Vera Roddy
Dear FRONTLINE, As much as one must sympathize with the suffering of many gulf war vets, I strongly believe that there is no physiological basis of a "gulf war syndrome". I think frontline's very balanced report showed this clearly. It is a fact of life that when bad things happen to people, one of the first responses is to try and place blame. How sad that so many have fueled the fire on this subject, only adding to the suffering already being experienced by those involved. It should be clear to any OBJECTIVE observer that the "syndrome" has been manufactured by those seeking to advance their own interests. Shame on them! They are providing much more damage than comfort! Washington, DC http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/syndrome/talk/index2.html Continued: Dear FRONTLINE, There is absolutely no scientific evidence that stress caused the Gulf veterans' illnesses. Psychiatric diagnoses are diagnoses of exclusion. Chemicals may have caused the veterans' illnesses via a general mechanism known as "toxicant-induced loss of tolerance," a theory of disease we have published on in the NIH journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The theory, which is backed by numerous clinical observations, states that a subset of more susceptible persons who are exposed to various chemicals or chemical mixtures may lose their prior, natural tolerance for common low-level chemical exposures, foods, and drugs that never were a problem for those individuals before and that don't affect most people. Subsequently, symptoms are triggered by such exposures. Classical toxicology does not explain this problem. I am a university researcher who serves as a consultant to the VA, is a member of the VA's national advisory committee on the Gulf War veterans' illnesses, and has done research on low level organophosphate (related to nerve agent) health effects. I also testified before Congressman Shay's committee and the Presidential Advisory Committee at their invitation. The latter made no mention of the research on toxicant-induced loss of tolerance (the TILT Theory of Disease, as it has been dubbed) in its final report. The TILT theory of diseases poses a testable hypothesis that has not been explored adequately by the federal agencies concerned with the Gulf veterans' illnesses. Because TILT involves a general mechanism for disease (like the germ theory), there may be diverse symptoms reported by those affected, just as the symptoms of infectious disease run the gamut. Dr. Nicholas Ashford of M.I.T. and I just published the second edition of our book, Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes (which has received professional acclaim by JAMA and other mainstream medical and scientific, peer-reviewed journals. The book details this theory and it potential to explain the Gulf veterans' health problems. Unfortunately, the research recommendations we and other scientists have made for testing this theory have not been pursued by either the VA or DOD. Congressman Sanders is aware of our work and its relationship to the Gulf veterans problems as well as to the problems reported by civilians with exposure to new carpet emissions and other low level mixtures. If you are interested in further information, please contact me. It is important to bear in mind that until just recently most physicians believed that ulcers were caused by stress. The physician who first proposed that ulcers were due to the bacterium, Helicobacter pylori was ridiculed, until he proved its causative role by infecting himself with this agent. We must not be too hasty to invoke stress as a cause for illnesses we do not fully understand before we have exhaustively ruled out other plausible (and testable) etiologies. Claudia S. Miller, MD Dear FRONTLINE, It is painfully obvious that the producers began this project with the preconceived notion that the syndrome doesn't exist. There also seemed to be a bias against the veterans. Speaking as a veteran of the Agent Orange (Dioxin) struggle, I am experiencing deja vu. We were not taken seriously, then abandoned, too. The Gulf War Vets are being treated with the same disdain that my unfortunate brothers in arms who served in Southeast Asia. (Dioxin use was not confined to just South Vietnam). The Veterans of my era were asking for the same answers as the Gulf War Vets are seeking now. They want to know everything the DoD is hiding that will provide a definitive answer about what is causing their ailments (and it is NOT STRESS). Next, the veterans want the government to provide effective treatment for the aching muscles, fatigue, insomnia, etc., that seems to afflict most of them. Finally, those who are disabled by this syndrome want the VA to recognize that it is a 100% disability and compensate them accordingly without the obstacles that Vietnam Era veterans were forced to endure. The issue is treating many seriously ill veterans. It is not about protecting some bureaucrats' or generals' retirement benefits. Dear FRONTLINE, I think your show missed the point. The point is that, this "all in your head," answer is the standard answer that I received from the VA. For me, I really did not have an opinion one way or another about this. Then after three years of the VA telling me there was nothing wrong with me I had back pain? I was seen by a civilian doctor and found out that instead of my head it was in my back. Bad enough that I had spinal fusion a year ago. My wife and I even tried to have a child, it ended in miscarriage. So what is my point? I actually had something wrong with me that was not in my head. And because of the miscarriage I am not all that sure about trying again. As for Doctor Joseph, his association with early aids research? If I remember right, did they get that right at first? I would have liked to see your program show the facts not someone tell me what the facts are. Like calling cape fear hospital in fayetteville and ask them how many birth defect babies they had before the gulf war and then after? I think that is called research? See, a majority of families go to a civilian doctor using this thing called champus and that means the military families have the kids at civilian hospitals, not military hospitals. Which means if that data DOD uses is based on births at military hospitals? The data would at the very least be incomplete? Yes or no? Bottom line I expected better from your show then what I saw. Mike R Dear FRONTLINE, Nicolson This was a perfect example of PBS putting their heads in the sand. The CDC (William Reeves, M.D.) said in September that GWS was CFS. Major General Blank said the same thing several years ago. If the right tests were done, each GWS patient would show abnormalities...i.e. SPECT scans, full lymphocyte panel, and a circulating blood volue test. It seems PBS is as determined to sweep this under the rug. Why such a non-scientific interview with Dr. Garth Nicolson? Why not even say what MI was? He has published in peer reviewed medical journals. Why was he driven from the MD Cancer Institute in Texas? Why not let outside experts that have asked test the serums of the inoculations given to GWS vets such as Dr. W. John Martin, formally of the NCI? Your show had less scientific knowledge but was certainly strong in the field of government psycho babble. Shame on you! National CFIDS Foundation, Inc. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/syndrome/talk/index3.html
12-31-03 |